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You are lying on a pile of scalemates in your respiteblock, and you are probably the happiest troll in any universe right now.
Karkat does not usually let you cuddle him. He certainly doesn't ask to cuddle with you. And you thought he didn't even know how to make expressions of contentment, much less happiness.
For sweeps you've joked and teased, bugged and needled, hoping that one day he would open up to you, that one day you could make him okay. And tonight, he cried into your shoulder, blubbering about nothing and everything. You were like that for a long time.
He seemed exhausted after that, and you thought he’d go back to his recuperacoon. He surprised you.
Okay, maybe burying himself in your scalemate pile and calling your name in the hope that you would understand wasn't exactly the same as asking to cuddle, but it doesn't matter because you got the hint and the both of you are practically suffocating in stuffed dragons. Your grin has returned, the one you always wear because life is something to be enjoyed, and there is nothing you could enjoy more than Karkat burying himself in your shirt, smiling, actually smiling, and holding on to you like you’ll vanish into thin air if he doesn't.
Well, okay, maybe there is one thing.
***
You are lying on a pile of scalemates in Terezi’s respiteblock, and you are probably the happiest you have ever been in your life right now.
Yeah, you were upset about a lot of things earlier tonight, and you probably would never have ended up in the position you’re in now if you weren't a little delirious from emotional exhaustion, but you don’t care. You just feel a little guilty and shameless, guilty because no one deserves to feel this happy, especially not you, and shameless because you’re really making a fool of yourself with the way you’re grinning and nuzzling into the curve of Terezi’s neck. She laughs at you and you laugh back, because with her it’s okay to be this giddy. It’s safe.
She runs her hand through your hair playfully before tipping your head back for a kiss. She misses at first, hitting your nose with her tongue, and you think it was deliberate, because she knows the shape of your head better than that. Terezi’s kiss is sloppy, messy, and … enthusiastic. You can feel her tasting the inside of your mouth, because of course she wouldn't kiss like a normal troll. You briefly wonder whether you’ll ever have a normal kiss, since when you argue and fight and blow up at each other it just makes you want her in a different way, and you don’t care about nonexistent drones from a dead planet.
“Terezi,” you murmur, when she finally lets you have your mouth again.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For everything.” It could have come straight from a romcom. And you’re the idiot protagonist who finds true love in the end.
“Karkat, you don’t have to—” she starts. “I mean, I’m just as—”
She sighs, and smiles.
“No problem, Karkat.”